Horacio Rodriguez came up with a tactical master stroke to bring Oxford United a thrilling win at Mansfield on Saturday.

He stunned supporters by dropping star striker Tommy Mooney and playing winger Chris Hackett through the middle up front.

But the tactics worked a treat as United capitalised on Mansfield's lack of pace at the back and Hackett helped himself to two goals in a game for the first time.

The U's won 3-1 to demonstrate they can perform without ten-goal leading scorer Mooney.

Head coach Rodriguez insisted the decision to drop Mooney did not mean, as some have been suggesting on fans' forums, that the former Swindon man will be leaving the club.

He said he had noticed that the 33-year-old, who had been poor in the home defeat by Grimsby, had been looking drained.

"I simply thought that it was good for Mooney to take one week off to rest," said Rodriguez, speaking through translator Giuilliano Iacoppi.

"But Tommy Mooney is very important for this team.

"I saw him against Grimsby and he seemed to me to be tired for the past week."

In two previous games without Mooney under the Argentine management team, United had lost to basement boys Kidderminster and Cambridge.

But this win proved they can carve out victories without him.

Asked how Mooney had taken to being left out of the squad completely, Rodriguez replied: "No player is happy being left out of the team and I don't expect him to be, but I repeat . . . he is a very important player for the team."

Hackett's blistering pace destroyed a sluggish Stags defence and he took his goals very well, after Steve Basham had fired the U's in front.

And Rodriguez admitted he had been contemplating the tactical change for some time, after Raul Marcovic's scouting report highlighted Mansfield's main weakness.

"I was thinking about it all week," he said. "Hackett played well - he made one goal and scored two goals, I couldn't have asked for more. I am happy for Chris."

He added: "We have some people going to watch every single game and we got some information that we used to our advantage.

"We had information that at the back they were slow and we told the forwards to stay on top of them."

But the coaching team must have wondered if they had done the right thing when Mansfield boss Carlton Palmer totally changed his starting line-up.

As it turned out, they did, because there was still no-one in defence with any pace.

"It was difficult, because Mansfield made five changes from the last game," Rodriguez admitted.

"I am very happy with the team. We won and we won well.

"We kept possession, kept control of the game and I was very pleased with the performance. We were superior for the whole game.

"Players like Hackett and Craig Davies are fast so you have to play to their strengths and provide them with the right passes.

"I reminded the players that we had 11 games left and we had to get as many points as we could from the 11 games."